Affordable Senior Housing Approved for Former WestHELP Site

A project creating 74 units of affordable rental housing for seniors is moving forward in Greenburgh after the Westchester County Board of Legislators voted unanimously last week to approve it.

The Mayfair project is located at the Knollwood Road entrance to the Westchester Community College campus. It will transform long-vacant buildings once used as transitional housing for homeless families into 60 one-bedroom apartments, eight two-bedrooms, and six studios for residents 62 and older with low and moderate incomes.

The deal for the former WestHELP site comes after years of discussion between the county, the Town of Greenburgh and the Valhalla School district. It adds to a proposal last year that would have created only 54 units.

The county will lease the property to the developer who in turn will pay $900,000 to Westchester and $600,000 to the town of Greenburgh.

The project is expected to have no impact on the Valhalla school district in which it is located.

BOL Vice Chair Alfreda Williams (D- Greenburgh), who led the charge to turn the site into permanent affordable housing, said, “This has been a long time coming, and the delay certainly added to the deterioration of the property. Now I look forward to opening day. Westchester is an aging county and 74 units of affordable senior housing is a boon not only to the Town of Greenburgh but to the county as well.”

The Mayfair project is just one of three affordable housing projects the Board approved last week. The others included a deal to enable the construction of 76 affordable rental-housing units as part of a project at 14 LeCount Place in New Rochelle. In addition, the Board approved another long-in-the-works deal that will create seven units of affordable rental housing as part of a development on Halstead Avenue in Harrison.

Also this term, the board has approved Mount Hope Plaza, a 56-unit project of affordable housing for seniors at Lake Street in White Plains.